1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vaporizing device to vaporize liquid, and a liquid absorbing member used therein.
2. Background of the Invention
In recent years, there have been seen vigorous studies and developments for fuel batteries to realize high energy use efficiency. The fuel battery makes fuel react with oxygen contained in ambient air electrochemically and takes out electric energy directly from chemical energy. The fuel batteries have been placed as a promising energy source. As for a fuel for used in the fuel battery, hydrogen can be mentioned. However, there is a problem that since hydrogen takes a gaseous state at ambient temperatures, it has difficulty in handling and storage. When a liquid fuel such as alcohols and gasoline is used, a system for storing the liquid fuel can be made comparably small in size, but the fuel and water vapor must be heated to a high temperature for reaction to create hydrogen which is used to generate electricity.
For example, in Japanese Laid-open Patent Specification No. 2004-18357, in order to create hydrogen from the liquid fuel and water, a technique in which the liquid fuel and water are vaporized in an evaporating apparatus, and a gas mixture of the liquid fuel and water supplied from the evaporating apparatus is reformed into hydrogen in a reformer, is disclosed.
However, as a vaporizing apparatus is made smaller in size, it becomes more difficult to vaporize fuel steadily or quantitatively.